e did not say who, or of what.--Then he began to think
about Liza; that she could scarcely be in love with Panshine; that if
he had met her under other circumstances--God knows what might have
come of it; that he understood Lemm's feelings about her now, although
she had "no words of her own." And, moreover, that that was not true;
for she had words of her own. "Do not speak lightly about that,"
recurred to Lavretsky's memory. For a long time he rode on with bent
head, then he slowly drew himself up repeating,--

"And I have burnt all that I used to worship,
I worship all that I used to burn--"

then he suddenly struck his horse with his whip and and galloped
straight away home.

On alighting from his horse he gave a final look round, a thankful
smile playing involuntarily on his lips. Night--silent, caressing
night--lay on the hills and dales. From its fragrant depths
afar--whether from heaven or from earth could not be told--there
poured a soft and quiet warmth. Lavretsky wished a last farewell to
Liza--and hastened up the steps.

The next day went by rather slowly, rain setting in early in the
morning. Lemm looked askance, and compressed his lips even tighter
and tighter, as if he had made a vow never to open them again. When
Lavretsky lay down at night he took to bed with him a whole bundle of
French newspapers, which had already lain unopened on his table for
two or three weeks. He began carelessly to tear open their covers and
to skim the contents of their columns, in which, for the matter of
that, there was but little that was new. He was just on the point
of throwing them aside, when he suddenly bounded out of bed as if
something had stung him. In the _feuilleton_ of one of the papers our
former acquaintance, M. Jules, communicated to his readers a "painful
piece of intelligence." "The fascinating, fair Muscovite," he wrote,
"one of the queens of fashion, the ornament of Parisian salons, Madame
de Lavretski," had died almost suddenly. And this news, unfortunately
but too true, had just reached him, M. Jules. He was, so he continued,
he might say, a friend of the deceased--

Lavretsky put on his clothes, went out into the garden, and walked up
and down one of its alleys until the break of day.

At breakfast, next morning, Lemm asked Lavretsky to let him have
horses in order to get back to town.

"It is time for me to return to business, that is to lessons,"
remarked the old man. "I am only wasting my